How odd to forget your own words. #poetry #prosepoem

I completely forgot that I wrote a chapbook of prose poems. Most of them are unpublished because I got very, very tired of sending them out and receiving either no response (sometimes after waiting a year!) or rejections. I just plain forgot about these poems. I also found a book of haiku I wrote. Forgot about those, too. Anyway, here’s a sample from the prose poems. The chapbook is called Glimpse. It’s about angels and gods and people. Maybe someday I’ll have the energy to send the chapbook out again.

Apollyon

— fallen angel of death, the destroyer

He got the text at 7 and was there in a half hour. The place seethed with birds: crows and pigeons like a plague, shit on the pavement. All of them squawking like crazy then everyone else came and he only had time to shove his phone back in his pocket before they were moving. Had to be a hundred-fifty people, maybe more, some of them high. The sun gone. They surged down the street, trashing cars, signs, whatever, as metal teeth crashed over the storefronts—they had to get in somewhere before the cops came. He ran for Macy’s, shoved a salesman over and everyone followed. It felt like he had wings, up in front, he flew with their hands on his back, the mob lifting him up and everything glittering like god lived here, like heaven was hardwood floors and crystal. The warmth distracting so he dismembered a mannequin like it was real. Smashed some perfume, not thinking about his mother. Her dead body four years ago. The stray bullet. The sweet scent drifted over the mob like ash, expensive fucking shit. He coughed and spit on the glass counters and everyone cheered until he fell. When his ribs broke he thought he heard the pigeons again, their little bodies feathering into the wind but it was locusts. Locusts ground into the floor near his head, broken shells like red glass. He tasted blood, looked up. Crows sat on the chandeliers, wings on fire, and he tried to call out, pray for help, but the pain flared so terribly he closed his eyes against the light.